APPENDIX. 319 



the whole muscular system, the fin-rays spread in a feeble quiver, 

 and the once powerful fish dies literally without a struggle. During 

 a single night from fifty to two hundred salmon may he thus slaugh- 

 tered, and half as many more lacerated in their efforts to escape, 

 the pools at such seasons being too shallow to afford certain safety 

 in retreat. The bed of coarse boughs, the chill and hungry awaking 

 at sunrise, the mixture of peril and fagging which form the return 

 down a swift stream, broken by falls, and rocks, and rapids, with 

 here and there a tedious portage, over which several hundred pounds 

 of fish, and bruised and blistered canoes must be transported all 

 these exertions appear but natural to Indians, and not worthy of 

 comparison as against the fruits of so much toil, converted at last 

 into six, eight, or ten dollars' worth of provisions and store goods, 

 or perhaps a demijohn of home-made rum. Speared salmon are 

 sold to traders at their own price, as the deteriorating mode of cap- 

 ture so much depreciates the fish. The illegality of the purchase or 

 exchange, also, often is pleaded as a risk for which a further propor- 

 tional deduction in the value of barter must be made. 



That the Indians must suffer starvation by being deprived of the 

 " native liberty " to ruin our salmon fisheries, is a very flimsy apo- 

 logy on the part of those who still desire to perpetuate so flagrant 

 an abuse. With the exception of some families or Naskapis,' who 

 have imprudently left their upland hunting-grounds and wandered 

 toward the rocky coasts, where sickness soon debilitates and cuts off 

 whole encampments, the lower St. Lawrence Indians do not endure 

 privations similar to many of the tribes in western Canada. This 

 comparative immunity is certainly due in great measure to the pater- 

 nal solicitude exercised by the exemplary missionaries of the Roman 

 Catholic Church. Almost total abstinence from " fire water " is not 

 the least of a beneficent improvement resulting from these self-deny- 

 ing missions. Were there not another salmon to be caught between 

 Quebec and Labrador, the extinction could not occasion to Indians 

 one tithe of the misery depicted by persons whose interest or preju- 

 dice it is to excite a sympathetic feeling favorable to the continu- 

 ance of facilities for spearing. I make no mere vague assertion ; it 

 is a deduction from practical observations and inquiry. The Indians 

 themselves know this, and it makes them all the more reckless and 

 disregardful of the future in their ravages. Trout are plentiful all 

 along the coast, and the inner lakes swarm with them. Every bay 

 and bank teems with codfish. The rod and line and bait will catch 

 both in hundreds. Hooks and lines are cheap as spearing imple- 

 ments. Seals are plenty everywhere. The product of one seal will 

 buy the fishing-gear of a family for the entire year. But, it is 

 argued, they need por|j: and flour, tea and sugar, guns and ammuni- 

 tion, which can be bought with salmon carcasses. Yes, and all 

 of these articles can be better had in exchange for trout, cod, seal- 

 oil, skins and furs. Birch canoes, baskets, and other manufactures, 



